God Provides

I've been thinking over the past couple of days about how our relationship with God is dynamic, not static. Once we are Christians, things aren't all just straightforward and easy - we are constantly moving in our relationship with God. That movement is either away from him or towards him.

Don't get me wrong, when we genuinely repent and put our faith in Jesus we are saved and united with him, and that cannot change (Ephesians 1:13-14, Philippians 1:6, Romans 8:28-39, John 6:37-47, John 10:27-30 and John 17:12 to name a few verses), but within our walk with God as Christians things are constantly changing. We are constantly learning and growing and we need to constantly be keeping our focus on God and on the gospel, otherwise we make room for satan to tempt us and to drag us away from our fellowship with God.

Tied to this is the fact that God works through all things for the good of his people (Romans 8:28). We do struggle and move away from him, but he always draws us back. He works through our failings to teach us, grow us and show is love and power more fully. Ive seen that countless times in my life.

Those two things put together provide a lot of motivation and encouragement.

• Since our walk with God is not static, we need to put effort in to stay close to him.
• But since God is in control and only he can change us, we can trust that he will work through our effort and draw us to him.
• Since our walk with God is always moving, we need to be working hard to obey him (not simply our of duty, but out of love and thankfulness to honour our saviour).
• But we also know that when we fail God is more than ready to forgive and that when we turn to him he will draw us back to himself.

For example: Over the last few weeks I've been really busy. I've had heaps of school work to do and a whole heap of other things going on. The result has been that even though I've kept reading the word, I haven't really been paying close attention to it and I haven't really be focussing on the gospel. One of the results has been that I've been getting stressed and anxious and haven't been trusting God as much as I should.

Today I had some time to think over that and to pray for help more fully then I have for the aw few days/weeks. God in his mercy/the Holy Spirit drew a few different verses to my mind including 1 Peter 5:7: 

"Cast all your anxiety on him because he cares for you."

Then when I looked over to what I was up to in Romans today here's what I read:

Romans 10:11

As Scripture says, “Anyone who believes in him will never be put to shame.”

Both of those were exactly what I needed to be thinking on today, and the Holy Spirit called them to mind to convict me and to draw me back to God. The flip side of the coin is that I need to work at trusting God more and at not getting so caught up in my school work and other things that they distract me from my walk with God.

The point of all this: Trust God. He provides whatever we need. He will not let us be tempted beyond what we can bear (1 Corinthians 10:13) and we need to put our trust entirely in him.

Soli Deo Gloria.

God Bless.
Nat.